Arrey yaar, I was peeling potatoes for my aloo dum this morning, and on the radio they were talking about how Odisha's hockey team used to be paid in cooking oil and rice, not cash. That stuck with me—imagine if the same kids from Nayagarh, like my own village boys, had proper grass turf and a coach who doesn't drive an auto on the side? I see the numbers: we spend crores on cricket stadium lights, but our indigenous sport players are still figuring out their next meal. Thik achhi, but this inequality in support is just not fair, yaar.

You know, yaar, my stall is near that big ground in Unit-4, and every evening I see these kids playing a local game with a tennis ball and a stick — *gilli-danda* they call it. Thik achhi, but I keep thinking, why don’t we have proper funding for this? Back in Nayagarh, my father used to say the village team had to share one torn kabaddi mat for ten years. Data says our indigenous sports get less than 2% of the sports budget, and that’s not fair, thik achhi?